Family reunited with stolen $3,500 puppy

Family members embrace Sol, a 2-month old French bulldog that had been stolen from their Oceanside home, after locating the dog for sale on Craigslist.

Family members embrace Sol, a 2-month old French bulldog that had been stolen from their Oceanside home, after locating the dog for sale on Craigslist. (Courtesy Oceanside Police Department)

Gary Warth

An Oceanside family has been reunited with their stolen French bulldog puppy after noticing the expensive dog for sale on Craigslist, police said.

The family had recently bought the puppy for $3,500, and it had been sold twice before it was located in a Hemet home. The case has been forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office to consider whether the seller should be charged with grand theft of a dog valued at more than $950.

The Oceanside Police Department said a family on Shenandoah Drive had discovered their puppy, Sol, was missing on Jan. 17. Family members said someone had broken the locked latch off their gate and pulled the fence apart to get to the dog.

The family was devastated by the loss and their 7- and 10-year-old daughters had cried themselves to sleep since the theft, according to a police press statement on Wednesday.

A family member spotted a brindle/blue, blue-eyed French bulldog puppy for sale on Craigslist for $1,200, and contacted the seller. The family member offered to pay a hefty price for Sol’s return, but the seller did not respond and immediately took the listing down, police said.

Oceanside police detectives located the seller in an Escondido apartment.

He denied any knowledge of Sol, but after making several inconsistent statements, he said he had found the puppy on the side of a road, police said.

He acknowledged that he made no attempt to locate the dog’s owners and had not called the Humane Society or the police. He said he already had sold Sol to somebody in Fontana, according to the release.

Investigators contacted the person in Fontana, who said the dog had been resold to a family in Hemet. Detectives finally traced Sol to what police described as a nice home that had two full-grown French bulldogs.

The woman who bought Sol from the Fontana seller was upset, but agreed that the puppy should be reunited with his original family, according to the release.

The Fontana couple who sold her the dog have given her another French bulldog puppy to replace Sol, who is back home after his Southern California adventure.

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